SET® Mania

Love the game of set. I’ve been playing it since I was a kid in the optimal card format. Having an app is handy for solo play. I did find all the game descriptions buried in the settings somewhere. That helped. Having them more easily findable would be good. But what I really want is to be able to rotate the game and play 3 cards across and 4 down and be able to play one handed. In horizontal mode you really have to have two hands unless maybe you have gigantic hands.

I’ve been playing SET for the last fifteen or so years, mainly as the card game, and it’s always been one of my favorites. I like the app a bit more, as the portability is unbeatable. There are some things to know, as the game, like all games, has a couple quirks. (Also, I only play Classic SET with the advanced deck.) First, there are not always sets in a given group of 12 cards, which can be frustrating if you’re new to the game. (1/33 chance, I believe.) If I don’t think there are any, I’ll start from the upper left and scan starting from card to right and all the way to end, repeating with next card (since any two cards have exactly one card that can make the three a set). Second, the way this app rewards with one, two, or three stars is intense! It takes some luck (i.e. no or almost no no set groups) to get top marks. It will take some practice to get even one star. My record is 9.6 seconds per set, but i average around 14 or 15.

I like the game Set a lot. I love being able to play it on my phone wherever. I’ve been spending my time analyzing the mathematics of it. I’ve been modeling it as a 3 or 4 dimensional torus, and a set is any straight line within it. I wish that the app explained what all the different games are. For Rediscovery, Marathon, and Arcade, it feels like I’m just playing regular Set as fast as I can, and then it stops at some point, because I can’t figure out what the rules are precisely. I got really into Set when I found it on the New York Times crossword puzzle page. It gives you four games of Puzzle, 2 basic and 2 advanced. With the basic pack, it picks one attribute to keep constant, but it changes from day to day for variety. In this app, the basic pack always has all the cards have a solid pattern. I really wish they could change that up randomly, because it doesn’t change the gameplay at all, but it does give you opportunity to see different sets. And variety is fun. I’d love it if there could be a shuffle button to rearrange all the cards. It’s a nice tool when I am stuck, and I use it all the time on the nytimes page.